All characters have been wiped. As part of this process, artisans, gold, and items (including those placed on the auction house or in a shared stash) have also been reset.
Switching out class skills will now require the use of a new feature known as the Nephalem Altar. Nephalem Altars are currently located in New Tristram, as well as in key locations throughout Act I. Clicking on an altar will open up the skill UI, allowing both active and passive skills to be selected or exchanged.

Quests

Gold rewarded from quests has been significantly reduced
Experience rewarded from quests after level 4 is now based on the number of mobs you’d have to kill to earn the same amount of experience, rather than being a strict percentage of a level

Skills

New passive skills have been added for all classes. See individual class notes below for more information.
AoE (Area of Effect) skills for all classes have had their damage reduced
Single-target skills for all classes have had their damage increased
All skills are now based off weapon damage

User Interface

The in-game UI has been updated with general art and usability improvements

Classes

Barbarian
Active Skills
The Barbarian's Fury Generators have received a tuning pass. Bash, Cleave, and Frenzy now generate more Fury whereas the other Fury Generators now generate less.
Additional changes include:
Battle Rage
Damage bonus reduced from 30% to 20%
Revenge
The chance for this ability to activate has been increased from 10% to 15%
Weapon Throw
Fury cost reduced from 20 to 10
Damage decreased from 210% to 180%

Passive Skills
New passive skills have been added:
Nerves of Steel
Unlocked at level 12
Your defense is increased by 25% of your Vitality

Passive Skills
New passive skills have been added:
Tactical Advantage
Unlocked at level 10
Whenever you use Vault, Smokescreen, or backflip with Evasive Fire you gain 60% movement speed for 2 seconds

Monk
Active Skills
Mantras
All Mantras now have a 15 second cooldown and grant a bonus effect for the first 3 seconds after activation
Additional changes include:
Blinding Flash
Spirit cost reduced from 50 to 30
Duration reduced from 5 second to 3 seconds
Breath of Heaven
Spirit cost reduced from 75 to 25
Healing amount reduced
Crippling Wave
Damage increased from 120% to 135%
Deadly Reach
Damage increased from 110% to 120%
Fists of Thunder
Damage increased from 100% to 120%
Lashing Tail Kick
Spirit cost increased from 25 to 30
Damage increased from 130% to 180%

Passive Skills
Transcendence
Healing per Spirit reduced

Witch Doctor
Active Skills
All Witch Doctor skills now do damage based on your weapon damage and cast at a speed based on your weapon attack speed.

Passive skills
New passive skills have been added:
Circle of Life
Unlocked at level 12
Whenever an enemy dies within 12 yards there is a 5% chance that a Zombie dog will automatically emerge
Jungle Fortitude
Unlocked at level 10
Reduces all damage taken by you and your pets by 20%

Wizard
Active Skills
The order in which skills are awarded from levels 6 to 13 has been adjusted. Players will now unlock offensive and defensive spells in an alternating order.
All Wizard skills now do damage based on your weapon damage and cast at a speed based on your weapon attack speed.

Passive Skills
New passive skills have been added:
Critical Mass
Unlocked at level 12
Your critical hits reduce the cooldown of your spells by 1 second

Followers
Templar
Skills
Guardian
Ability now unlocks at level 20, instead of level 5
Heal
Healing provided by this ability will now scale properly
When activated, ability will heal you for ¼ of your total health every 15 seconds
Will only heal when player is below 50% health, down from 67%
Intimidate
Slow amount reduced from 80% to 50%
Intervene
Intervene is the new name for Taunt, and now unlocks at level 5
Radius of monsters to be taunted reduced from 30 to 10 yards
Duration reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds
Will now only cast when player is below 50%
Cooldown increased from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
Loyalty
Life regenerated by this ability will now scale properly

Items

General
Players now start with 5 health potions
Health globes now heal you over 1.5 seconds rather than over 5 seconds
The number of chests, shrines, and other interactable items (e.g. bookcases and loose stones) has been greatly reduced across the entire game
Items sold from vendors will now be at least one item level lower than those that are currently available to a player via drops from monsters
The level of an item is now much more likely to match or be close to the level of the monster from which it dropped, and the affixes that appear are much more likely to be from the upper range
Weapons
Several significant changes have been made to weapons and weapon damage affixes:
The damage bonus granted to two-handed weapons over one-handed weapons has been reduced from 15%-38% from level 1-60 to 13%-32%
Wands attack speed has been increased from 1.2 to 1.4
Quivers, Orbs, and Mojos will now always come with +Min/Max damage
Ceremonial Daggers will now frequently come with +Mana Regen
Wands will now frequently come with the +Max Arcane Power
The amount of inherent slow granted by cold weapons has been reduced from 3 seconds to 1 second
One-handed crossbows and daggers now pull from a separate pool of affixes for + damage
The damage variance between weapons of the same type has been reduced.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that was causing two-handed Monk combat staves to not receive the proper damage bonus

Monsters

General
A new Mortar affix has been added to the game. Mortar monsters will lob grenades at enemies outside melee range.
Lightning bolt damage from Electrified-enchanted monsters has been reduced by 40%
Monsters that are enchanted to an element (Molten, Electrified, etc.) now correctly have 50% resistance to their chosen element
Ex: Molten monsters will have 50% damage resistance to Fire at equal level
Wretched Mothers in Act I can now only summon one zombie at a time
Treasure Goblins are now immune to fear

Bosses

Skeleton King
Whirlwind damage increased from 100% to 300%
Cleave damage increased from 80% to 100%

Crafting

Artisans
Blacksmith
Blacksmiths now start with a Fist weapon and a Dagger weapon option to craft
Blacksmith leveling and crafting recipes have received a tuning pass
Items
Pages of Training will now drop starting at level 6, down from level 8
The chance for Magic and Rare items to salvage into higher quality crafting material has been increased from 1% to 5%
Salvaging blue items now has a 1% chance to salvage into Legendary crafting material

"With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn't put so many years of work into Diablo III to release a game that was almost ready," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "The beta test is going very well, and we look forward to making the most of the extra time we're taking to deliver an experience that lives up to our vision for the game and the expectations of our players. Next year is going to be an incredibly busy one for Blizzard, and we hope an incredibly fun one for Blizzard gamers."

I really really hope this is released before February. My brother is coming back from the Navy on leave for three weeks and we're going to do some hardcore gaming while he is here. If this game is out when he is here, oh man!

my account was hacked...have sorted it. perhaps my internet security needs to be improved but would rather not shell out on one of those authenticators (i wonder why these exist for wow and no other game..or so i have seen).

I have been in the beta now for a while, got all the classes to the max level for the beta. Like the graphics and such, does not look like wow at all, at least what I have seen of wow. Sounds and effects fit the dark setting. It feels a bit dumbed down vs. Diablo 2, no skill tress and such. Crafting mechanic is good and is rewarding. If the beta is any reflection on the true game, it is a certain buy on launch for me.

So far I have not had any connection issues or any disconnects. I even played a few games in multi-player and had no issues. Overall a good beta test. Game is more than I expected it to be.